The Secret Life Of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a book about a lost girl, who only seeks to learn more about her mother by traveling to the place she truly believes she will find answers, Tiburon, South Carolina. Her journey to find her long-awaited answers begins with her father and ends with August, the oldest of the Boatwright sisters. She hears various stories all of which form an idea in Lily’s mind of who her mother was. Of course, there were some details that Lily didn’t want to hear, but it was apart of her journey. Each and every single answer that she receives is unique and describes who Deborah was in different ways. From TRay who only knew ways to insult Lily’s mother, to August who always found the best in people, they “help” Lily

In this next step in her journey, Rosaleen becomes the next person to answer some questions about who Lily’s mother was. Although the answer is short, and not really an answer, it still manages to help her in the forming of who her mother was. During the conversation between Lily and Rosaleen, Lily mentions to Rosaleen what TRay had said about her mother, and Rosaleen doesn’t say a word, instead, she stayed in silence. According to Lily, “she squinted straight ahead as if weighing the possibility.”(Kidd, 52) This gesture, or answer, just causes Lily to continue to form her doubt about her mother. She is still refusing to believe what TRay had told her but having Rosaleen consider the likelihood of it just makes it even worse. Rosaleen is like a mother to Lily, and having her side with TRay -her worst enemy- just breaks the boundary of what she first thought of her biological mother. Her only option now is just to refuse those ideas until she finds want she wants to hear, and that takes her to Tiburon, South

In Tiburon Lily finds herself with August, the women who took care of her mother and knew the answer to Lily’s most asked question. When she and Lily finally have their conversation about her mother, August reveals the grand answer. August states “No, honey, she came by herself.”(Kidd, 251) By the time August tells Lily the truth about her mother, Lily gets emotionally destroyed. She has already heard the same thing about her mother from TRay, and technically from Rosaleen. Now, the person who she has grown to love so dearly, tells her the first thing she doesn’t want to hear, which is that her mother did leave her. At this point in the story all of the people who she has asked has “helped” her develop an understanding of who her mother really was. When she finally speaks to August about her mother, she has already been weakened by the things TRay and Rosaleen have said to her about her mother. This time, she doesn’t stop and rejects the thought of it being true, she basically gives up and begins to rant. Right after August’s statement, Lily says “ I do, I hate her. She wasn’t anything like I thought she was.” (Kidd, 251) She has spent her entire life rejecting the thought that her mother had left her. When August finally tells her the truth, she was basically pulling Lily’s last straw. Lily had given up, she lived her entire life with the idea that her mother